Street of Automotive Dreams

By DAVID W. DUNLAP

Published: July 7, 2000

Given New York's hate-hate relationship with motor vehicles -- on the one hand, their numbers and bulk make the streets impassable; on the other hand, their fumes and noise foul the atmosphere -- it is hard to imagine a day when mid-Manhattan was the automotive Acropolis of America.

But there was such a time. And there was such a place: Automobile Row, a one-and-a-half mile stretch of Broadway from the 40's to the 70's, lined with car makers, tire companies and dealerships by the dozens. Bedazzled buyers could find the ''Three P's'' of luxury motoring -- Packard, Peerless and Pierce (makers of the Arrow) -- jostling for attention with Babcock Electrics and White Steamers, Hupmobiles, Loziers, Overlands, Reos and Speedwells.

''In great halls of baronial aspect, on Oriental rugs and marble floors, under little whispering galleries where the salesmen retire to their orisons, America's most shining triumphs are displayed,'' Christopher Morley wrote in his 1923 essay ''Round Columbus Circle.''

The salesmen -- and the prayers they offered -- have long since vanished. But much of Automobile Row remains. It is simply hiding in plain sight, like so much of New York history.

Though the last dealer decamped to 11th Avenue in 1985, many architectural monuments of Manhattan's automotive history can still be seen: buildings by masters like Carrere & Hastings, Shreve & Lamb, Albert Kahn, Francis Hatch Kimball, William Welles Bosworth and Howard Van Doren Shaw.

One small treasure of Automobile Row, the 92-year-old former Goelet Garage at the northeast corner of 64th Street, is headed for the scrap heap. The six-story loft building, now known as 1926 Broadway, is to be demolished next year and replaced by a 29-story apartment tower.

Admirers of the Goelet building, which is distinguished by broad window bays intricately framed in white terra cotta, had urged its designation as a landmark.

''The word garage does not adequately describe how this building originally functioned,'' the preservationist Christopher W. London wrote in a recent historical analysis of 1926 Broadway. Instead, he said, it was a ''select emporium engaged principally in the exclusive manufacture, repair, service and sales of this recently developed, fashionable technological tool.'' Before automobiles were mass-produced on assembly lines, Mr. London noted, they were more painstakingly constructed in small-scale ''boutique'' shops, like the coaches they supplanted.

Last year the Landmarks Preservation Commission declined to designate the Goelet Garage. But several automotive buildings south of Columbus Circle are to be considered for landmark status, beginning with the former United States Rubber Company Building, now known as 1790 Broadway, at the southeast corner of 58th Street.

Jennifer J. Raab, the chairwoman of the commission, said the study of the Goelet Garage had ''focused us on the importance of automobiles in the history of the city and motivated us to ensure the protection of the important icons of the industry while they're still intact.''

From Horse to Horsepower

Automobile Row succeeded the carriage-and-harness district around Longacre Square, as Times Square was called in the 19th century. Every so often, startling reminders come to light. Two years ago, for instance, the demolition of a building at Broadway and 47th Street revealed a jumbo hand-painted sign on an adjacent wall for ''J. A. Keal's Carriage Manufactory.''

By the early 1900's, Automobile Row was a kind of proto-Silicon Alley, a jumble of hungry entrepreneurs peddling an emerging technology in a bewildering variety of forms to a credulous -- and growing -- public.

Embodying the transition from horse-drawn to horseless transportation is the former Studebaker Building, 1600 Broadway, on the northeast corner of 48th Street. Built in 1902 and designed by James Brown Lord, it was a 10-story factory and office for the Studebaker Brothers Company, makers of automobiles, carriages and wagons.

In 1909, Studebaker held what it called the ''most comprehensive exhibit of motorcars ever shown by any one maker'' in its salesroom: seven-passenger touring cars, suburbans, roadsters, runabouts, coupes, limousines, landaulets, ambulances, delivery wagons, 10-ton trucks and ''electric pleasure vehicles.''

Studebaker moved uptown in 1911 and went out of business in 1966. Its old showroom is now the Texas Texas restaurant. Even though the red-brick building lost its cornice 12 years ago, it is still a solid presence on Times Square, with chamfered corners and broad arched windows.

Where Ford Reigned

Proceeding uptown on Broadway -- something best done on foot -- the next milestone is the handsome former Ford Motor Company Building on the northeast corner of 54th Street. It is now the headquarters of Unite, the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees. A branch of the Amalgamated Bank, which the union owns, occupies the former Ford showroom.

Built in 1917, the six-story Ford Building was designed by Albert Kahn, arguably the foremost American industrial architect of the 20th century.